Jan. 28, 2022

Two USCHS teams excel in STEM competition

Two Upper St. Clair High School teams were among the top teams in the Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) Pennsylvania State Competition. The Panther Projects team finished second and received a wild card invitation to compete in the national/international competition. The Engineers of Upper St. Clair team placed third. Results were announced on Jan. 24, 2022.

The Panther Projects team includes Scott Cheung, grade 12; George Abdel-Messih, grade 9; Paige Kline, grade 9; Andrew Xu, grade 11; and Krishna Sathya Vagheeswar, grade 9. The Engineers of Upper St Clair is composed of Henry Zheng, grade 11; Rohan Mehta, grade 9; Anuj Shah, grade 10; Emily Neiberg, grade 10; and Nitin Chandran, grade 11. Students worked and competed in this challenge independently through the high school’s Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship (ITE) Club.  

Members of the Panther Projects team now have the chance to improve their engineering design notebook and compete for the RWDC national and international titles as well as merit awards on April 23. Wild card teams were recommended by judges and reviewed by the RWDC Technical Committee. No more than 5 teams are selected each year to compete in the wild card slots.

Both teams were recognized for their demonstrated ability and significant achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“You are among the best and brightest students in the state and the nation,” said Ralph K. Coppola, Ed.D., founder of the Real World Design Challenge. “You demonstrated innovation by experimenting with the unfamiliar, challenging familiar processes and methods, pushing the limits of current team thinking and adapting or creating tools/processes to increase efficiencies in your design.”

The Real World Design Challenge is an annual competition that provides high school students the opportunity to work on real world engineering challenges in a team environment. Student teams are asked to address a challenge that confronts the nation's leading industries. Students utilize professional engineering software to develop their solutions and generate presentations that convincingly demonstrate the value of their solutions. The challenge provides students with opportunities to apply the lessons of the classroom to the technical problems that are being faced in the workplace.